Sunday, June 28, 2009

Wish I hadn't thought of this

Comments (22)

I've always been starled at comparing the time between the end of WWII and my birth in the erly 1950s, and the time between my birth and the present. Especially when thinking about playing in the dirt in the late 1950s with plastic WWII soldiers/tanks/jeeps.

When you hit 60 you get to pay cheaper rates going to first run movies. I always pay $3 less than the other members of my family. Plus, at 62 I get a lifetime pass to the National Park System for $10. All in all, not a bad deal for getting old.

I remember WWII as a child near Chicago. The air raid drills, the B-17's flying over, the blackouts, my dad collecting the leaflets and being sure all lights on the block were out. A block captain, I believe he was called.

PMG,
Wow, am I with you on that WW2/1950s time interval. As a kid watching black and white films like "The Longest Day", I saw World War 2 as ancient history back near World War 1, just after the Civil War which was probably closer to the Roman Empire than my life.

I knew my parents had been in the war. They were in their mid-30s when they had kids so they seemed older than my friends' parents. They also seemed different than the younger Moms and Dads and it had to be the experience of heading to Europe in their 20s.

They were still decompressing from it when they started having us. It might have been centuries before to me, but to them it had just happened.

They didn't even go home when the war was over. After the European theater they both ended up in the South Pacific where they met. It was like they couldn't just go back to their former lives after the war.

My Mom in particular never got over it. She had been in the Red Cross in France and saw thousands of horribly wounded soldiers from some of the biggest battles in history - guys who had just been hit a day or two before. I'm sure she made a difference in talking some of them through it. Real life and death stuff where badly hurt men in a ward feed off the emotional strength of a young woman from back home.

50 years later when she was ready to talk about it, she would still recall individuals who really got to her.

It really shocked me when I finally figured out that this stuff had only occurred right before we kids were born.

Of course, time intervals were so huge back then - 10 years really did feel like a century. Now I can snap my fingers and make a beat to the years passing by.

“As a kid watching black and white films like "The Longest Day", I saw World War 2 as ancient history back near World War 1, just after the Civil War which was probably closer to the Roman Empire than my life”.

Bill MacDonald: You must be about the same age as me?(61). WW2 was never ancient history to me.

I grew up playing in the rubble of bombed out buildings in cities like Mainz
and Munich. When I was 17 I toured the Ardennes by bike(this was a few weeks before I abandoned my bike and started hitch-hiking- a much better way to travel in Europe back then). There were still tank hulks in situ and rusted helmets, empty German gas mask containers scattered around.

“They were still decompressing from it when they started having us. It might have been centuries before to me, but to them it had just happened.”

Bill, my father and uncles were vets. And being an Army brat, I also grew up listening (enraptured) to other vets’ about their time in the ETO.

As an adult I remained fascinated with WWII and in oral history and I listened through the years to many more vets talk about their experiences.

Most all of the above, inadvertently or not, expressed the same thing about their military service during the war: it was the best years/time of their lives.

Yeah, all the wars, all the wars. Absolutely. Every. single. war. uprising. rebellion. firefight. instigation. and drop of blood spilled since WWII, has been started and caused by the CIA. Every. 'threat'. a LIE. Abso-F'ING-lutely.

- -
My line in the sands of time which divides 'old world' from 'new world' is those who can remember when before there was TV.

A conversation-gambit game I still play occasionally with strangers -- but fewer and fewer can play -- is: What was the lowest price for gasoline you can remember?
Bonus points: What's the lowest price for gas in a car you drove?

Geoff,
I'm 55 and I grew up in Arabia, but my parents took me all over Europe checking the history. We went to actual buildings in France where my Mom was stationed during the war.
My Dad was more into the "I don't even want to discuss not discussing it" mode.
I do know he was in the signal corp and he told me once he had seen General Patton, and didn't like him. He thought the pistols were flashy. The one he really liked was General Omar Bradley.
My parents took me to the beach at Normandy and also cemeteries full of endless rows of dead soldiers.
We also visited the villages along the Rhine River.
I'm going on memory here but we visited a city that had been heavily bombed in Germany and they kept what was left of the cathedral and built this stain-glass war memorial on it. This is google free but I'm going to guess Cologne.
What a place.
Then just when you're into World War 2 mode in Europe, you come across a battlefield like Waterloo. Amazing.

To steal from Garry Trudeau, it means that you can't die. Everyone's counting on you. (Besides, you at least have a real historical event happening on your birthday. In my case, I know that I'm facing another birthday because Entertainment Weekly is running its annual wankfest on the current anniversary of the premiere of Star Trek.)

I too am 55.
Petrol Stop gas stations on 39th and Holgate and another had gas for 24.9 in about 1971. I remember buying 50 cents of gas for my 1970 toyota corolla and making it all day and more to Cleveland HS and home in Eastmoreland.

The corolla was bouth by my parents the year before at 1795.00

In 1971 they bought two first year honda civics for 1329.00 each
I took the corolla my brother took one of the hondas.

"Plastic army men in the dirt"?

wow, vivid menories there.

And I always set them up with a Right-wing military dictator installed backed by American taxpayer money to stop free-voting election scheduled for tomorrow.

All you old guys might want to chew this one over for a minute -- assuming you still can chew, that is: Michael Jackson was three years older than the President of the United States (who still has a few months on me, at least)..

Another double fiver - and my dad also didn't talk much about either WWII (Europe) or Korea - he stayed in the reserves to help pay for school, and ended up in 1950 getting sent to Korea for a second round of active duty. Just would say how cold it was in Korea.

I too remember gas for pennies - I was a cook at a 4-H camp in Idaho in high school and college, and would drive home a couple of times a summer. Driving an Ford station wagon, no less. Good Times! Then, bought my Honda in 1979 during one of the gas shortages.

Why do we always remember when prices were lower (White Castle for 15 cents) and forget working for $1 an hour, when making $10,000 a year was big bucks, not poverty wages?
I'll take $4 gas over old-fashion dentistry anytime.

Road Work

Miles run year to date: 45
At this date last year: 117
Total run in 2016: 155
In 2015: 271
In 2014: 401
In 2013: 257
In 2012: 129
In 2011: 113
In 2010: 125
In 2009: 67
In 2008: 28
In 2007: 113
In 2006: 100
In 2005: 149
In 2004: 204
In 2003: 269